Qviro, a Belgium-based review platform that helps factories and engineers make confident purchasing decisions, has secured €1M in growth capital from investment funds LRM, Industrya, and imec.istart.
Genk-based company will use the funds to roll out its online marketplace for Industry 4.0. Qviro previously received financial support from Vlerick Business School Entrepreneurship Fund, Vlaio, and Digital Attraxion.
Helping in purchasing decision
Founded by Sven De Donder and Jorg Hendrikx, Qviro helps industrial users make informed purchasing decisions based on its intelligent search platform.
“User reviews are already used a lot today on webshops and consumer review platforms like Tripadvisor,” says co-founder Jorg Hendrikx, “but what makes Qviro so unique is that we use reviews in a professional context. We are the first company worldwide to collect reviews for purchasing and selling industrial automation technology. Those reviews make it possible to make a good choice for a buyer and are also a source of market insights. Then, we sell those data and insights to large industrial companies.”
Qviro says thousands of engineers use the platform every month to buy technology. Also, Qviro is already working with industrial companies such as ABB (Switzerland), Doosan (Korea), and Kinova (Canada).
At the same time, it is a SaaS platform that provides vendors with market intelligence and data from potential customers. Qviro is based in Genk, and the team also works from The Beacon in Antwerp thanks to imec.istart.
“We started during Covid so we worked from home from the start. In addition, our colleagues are in Paris, Kuala Lumpur, and Skopje,” says co-founder Sven De Donder. “The users and customers of our review platform are located worldwide, so it is crucial that we also find that global culture in our team.”
“As an investment company, LRM has been actively looking for companies that capitalise on Industry 4.0 for years,” says Tom Vanham, general manager at LRM. “Qviro’s intelligent business model pushes all existing boundaries and responds perfectly to the trend of user reviews where buyers fall back on online user experiences. In combination with the driven management team, their trajectory at imec.istart and the confidence of Industrya, we believe enormously in the further growth of Qviro.”
“Qviro was the first startup to go through our incubation program in 2021. We were immediately impressed with how their innovative business model is providing an evolution in the buying process of technology such as robots and industry 4.0,” says Alexandre Braconnier, Chief Investment Officer of Industrya. “Qviro was nurtured by a powerful ecosystem in Belgium and is now ready for the world. Together with management and co-investors, Industrya looks forward to supporting Qviro’s international growth.”
